The Sweetness Between Us by Sarah Winifred Searle

Title: The Sweetness Between Us

Author: Sarah Winifred Searle

Genre: Contemporary

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 29^th October 2024

Format: Paperback

Pages: 240

Price: $22.99

Synopsis: Heartstopper meets vampires in this blood-sipping-turned-romance graphic novel from the Prime Minister’s Literary Award-winning and CBCA short-listed creator of The Greatest Thing.

NOTABLE BOOK: 2025 CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers

Summer holidays are over. Perley and Amandine should be busy with their school’s knitting club and hockey, but instead they’re struggling with major life changes.

Perley has been diagnosed with diabetes and is trying to get his head around sugar levels and insulin shots. Amandine, part of a respected vampire family, has been turned much younger than she expected after a near-fatal car accident. Bonding over hospital trips and new diets, the two teens form a fast friendship. And Amandine’s ability to taste blood sugar levels is a helpful perk for Perley that also provides her an ethical source of sustenance (essential for a vegan-turned-vampire).

But as the year passes, Perley and Amandine begin to realise that their coping strategies – and their blood-sipping-turned-romance – may not be as healthy as they first thought. Will they be able to get their lives back to normal? And when so much has changed, what does ‘normal’ even mean?

A sweet YA graphic novel full of fantasy, friendship and first love, from the award-winning creator of The Greatest Thing.

An earlier version of this review appeared in Good Reading Magazine in November 2024.

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The end of the summer holidays have come, and Perley and Amandine are back at school. This year, they should be busy with the knitting club – Perley, and hockey – Amandine. But the past summer has seen the teens go through huge changes in their lives.

Perley has recently been diagnosed with diabetes, and his life is different. He has to get his head around medication, blood levels and insulin, and knowing when he needs to eat – not easy when you’ve never had to do that before. He’s spending lunchtimes with the counsellor, catching up on what he has missed and adjusting to his new life when he meets Amandine, who is part of a local, and well-renowned vampire family where everyone is turned when they reach a certain age. Yet, Amandine has had this choice taken away from her after a near-fatal car accident. Amandine is a different kind of vampire – she can detect blood sugar levels, and she’s also a vegan who needs ethically-sourced blood.

All of this leads to Perley and Amandine navigating the first year of these drastic changes in their lives, and a blood-sipping romance that may not be as ethical or safe as they first hoped when they came up with their unique idea. All of this is made clear from the start and throughout the book. Vampirism and diabetes are the driving forces of this novel, reflecting on how people navigate the changes they face. The hook here for young adult readers is vampires – because they seem to be quite popular. But these days, vampires are quite different to what we have known from Dracula or Buffy. Their differences are explained really well, and they work within the story to show that vampires can be reimagined well. It’s a good thing, because I like it when people try different things in stories, and they work well. It’s a powerful thing to do, and to showcase this through diversity with race, disability, love, sexuality and gender.

Friendship is a key theme in this book, and this is one of the important messages that the book has in it. That we can find friendship and eventually love in places we never suspected, and with people we never imagined we’d connect with. There are feelings of despondency and a sense of constantly being unsure about changes in our lives, in so many ways. It reflects the many changes we see and experience in our lives, and how much more emotional they can be when they are sudden or when we are teenagers. The changing trajectory of their lives means Perley and Amandine need to learn how to adapt as they explore how healthy relationships work, and how to accept people for who they are. It also plays with how we accept the things we can’t control and the secrets we want to keep, but that need to be shared.